TSYS Survey: Mobile Apps Drive The New Payments Environment

Mobile apps geared towards wallets and collections of offers – but not necessarily making purchases –are a major driver of the new payments environment, according to TSYS’ 5th Annual U.S. consumer payment survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers who have both debit and credit cards. TSYS is a leading payments processor.

It is a grouping that probably favors the over-banked compared to the under-banked. Yet we look to the TSYS survey for signs of new influences on marketing and the relative clout of players such as Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and eBay in a new payments environment that will impact shopping and buying behaviors for both local services and retail goods.

According to the survey, Amazon has the most downloaded mobile app, with 57 percent of respondents downloading. It is the second most used app, with 38 percent using it at least several times a month. Banking apps have been downloaded by 50 percent of respondent, and are used the most frequently by this survey’s respondents at 39 percent. Paypal follows at 52 percent downloaded/32 percent frequently used; eBay comes in at 48 percent/22 percent and Starbucks is at 29 percent/15 percent. As a category, Daily deal apps such as Groupon and Living Social are also widely disseminated, with 37 percent/19 percent.

A free report summarizing the survey notes that consumers typically look for an incentive when choosing one payment option over another. Fifty-eight percent said that they have a rewards program attached to their most preferred payment type.